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State edict could harm faculty research

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At the University of Akron, researchers are developing new techniques for examining tumors
microscopically so that they can be treated more effectively. At the University of Toledo,
researchers are developing various new techniques for converting biomass into fuel and other
products.

At the University of Cincinnati, students this semester in a faculty-led honors course will be
visiting communities in Botswana and South Africa to study the transmission and prevention of such
diseases as HIV-AIDS and malaria.

All this extraordinary work by faculty across Ohio is endangered by the provision in Gov. John
Kasich’s budget bill that, if college administrations choose to change their workload, they must
then do so across their institutions by requiring all full-time faculty members to teach one or
more extra courses.

Teaching loads are carefully crafted to meet the needs of the students, of the discipline and of
the research mission. Faculty are huge economic assets; they bring in millions of research dollars
through grants, both private and federal. In fact, as state support for higher education had
sharply decreased over the past 20 years, faculty research money has helped replace the lost the
revenue.

A one-size-fits-all edict from the state will impair the ability of the faculty to carry out
their distinctive missions and make it difficult to retain our most productive faculty and attract
high-quality scholars to Ohio.

This approach would be similar to measuring a legislator’s work only on the time spent in the
House or Senate chamber. Or Kasich’s workload just on the time he spends at his desk.

Rather than saving money, this strategy is likely to be very costly to our public
institutions.

The most pervasive problem recognized by nearly all analysts is “administrative bloat.” If there
are savings to be had, it is through redirecting revenue spent in unproductive administration
toward instruction and research.

This is not a crazy idea. Former University of Cincinnati President Nancy Zimpher, now
chancellor of the State University of New York System, has a plan to redirect 5 percent of
administrative spending to instructional purposes. That sounds like a good place for Ohio to
start.